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THIS THEN IS 



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PLAND 



ASTURES 



BEING SOME OUT-DOOR 
ESSAYS DEALING WITH 
THE BEAUTIFULTHINGS 
THAT THE SPRING AND 
SUMMER BRING ^ ^ ^ 

By ADELINE KNAPP 




Done into a book at the Roycroft Pri 
ing Shop in East Aurora, New York 

MDCCCXCVII 




'/ 






GKft 

Rebekah Crawford 
Mar.14-1927 









y 



Copyrighted by 

The Roycroft Printing Shop 

1897 






OF THIS EDITION THERE WERE 
PRINTED BUT SIX HUNDRED COPIES 
41k EACH BOOK IS SIGNED AND NUM- 
BERED: THIS BOOK IS NUMBER Q $ 



2 



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I 




HEN the warm rains 
succeed winter's driv- 
ing downpours, and the 
young grass begins to 
mantle the meadows ¥ 
with tender green, is 
khe time, of all the year, 
to be out of doors ^^^ 
All the woodsy places are cool and dripping 
and dim and delicious. A month later they 
will be not less beautiful, perhaps, but less 
approachable. The things of Nature grow so- 
phisticated as the season advances. In the 
early springtime they are frank and confiding, 
and willingly tell the secrets of their growth 
to him who asks »§ They have time, in these 
first beginnings of things, for friendly socia- 
bility : to show their tiny roots and bulbs, 
and let us study the delicate, gracious ui^fbM^^^^^ 
ings of leaf and bud and blossom. In ^ few . ) 
weeks they will all be too busy, keepin 
with the season's swift march, to stop 
visit with the lovingest of human frien4s. 
Do we forget, from springtime to sprin 
how lovely will be the year> awakeii&i^ 
Each winter of our disconte' 
remember, as my longing im 
forward, the tender charm of t 
wonder, yet with each recurf 
to me as a new and unknown jo 










The whole world seems to welcome the new 
year-child. Even before the first growths ap- 
pear there is a hushed awareness throughout 
Nature that moves the heart to thankfulness 
and remembered expectation ^ The hope of 
springtime comes without stint, and without 
fail, bringing each one of us the message his 
heart is prepared to receive, and quickening 
our purest, least sordid impulses. The best 
that is in us seems possible, in the spring- 
time. Who of us does not then dream that 
this best will yet gain strength to withstand 
the heat and drouth of summer's fierce search- 
ing ? We turn to Mother Nature like children 
who long to be good. The worshipping in- 
stinct that lies deep v/ithin each soul goes 
out to her, vesting her in that personality 
which we have long since pronounced un- 
thinkable when applied to God. There is a 
suggestion in the situation that is not with- 
out a certain saving humor to relieve it from 
grotesqueness. We are not far from a per- 
sonal god when we send our souls out in lov- 
ing contemplation of personified Nature, yet 
we still go on asking if God is, and if He is 
Truth. Whom do we ask, and why does the 
question rise? If God is Truth, He must be 
universal ; and to be perceived by each soul 
for himself /^^ If, then, I perceive him not, 
either He is not the truth or else I am simple 

lO 




and sincere in desiring the truth. If He is not 
the truth, do I then desire human persuasion 
that He is ? Or, if I am not simple and sin- 
cere, who can make me so ? 

lATURE will help us if we turn to 
her. We have filled our lives so 
full of complexities and problems 
I that it is well for us to have her 
annual reminder that even without our taking 
thought about it the real world, that will be 
here when we, with all our busyness, shall 
have passed from sight, has renewed itself, 
and stands bidding us come and find peace. 
For Nature keeps open house for us, and even 
when we visit her and leave a trail of dust 
and desolation behind us, like the stupid, un- 
tidy children we are, she only sets herself, 
with the silent, persistent patience of her 
age-wise motherhood, to cover and remove 
it. Dow^n in the canyon, this morning, among 
the trillium and loosestrife and wild potato, 
I found the inevitable tin can left by some 
picnicker to mar and desecrate the land- 
scape, but now completely filled with soft 
brown mold, and growing in it a mass of 
happy green wood-sorrel yP 
This is better than going at things with a 
broom, gathering them up and removing them 
from one place to another, which is about as 
far as we humans have progressed in our 

iz 






OXptan\> science of cleaning up VMi^ I was glad to wel- 
f^MxfuteA co^^® ^^^ trillium. Ho\v one loves its quaint 
^ old name of wake-robin, fitting title for this 

first harbinger of spring, that conies to us 
even before the robin's note is heard. Many 
of our common wild-flowers have several 
names, but there is none w^ith such invari- 
ably pretty ones as all ages have united in 
bestowing upon w^ake-robin. Birth-root, our 
forefathers called it, seeing the birth of the 
new year in its early blossoming, and 
how^ many generations have known 
it as the trinity-flower! But 'tis 
best know^n,! think,as w^ake- 
robin, and the very 
breath of spring is 
in the name. 



12 




MEMBER of the great lily family 
is wake-robin "^iV It loves damp, 
shady places and moist, rich val- 
leys. On the Pacific Coast we do 
not find the typical Eastern variety, but we 
have a variety of our own, tho' unmistakably 
wake-robin. Its color varies from rich madder- 
red to pale-pink, sometimes almost white. It 
grows from a thick, tuber-like root, and the 
calyx has, surrounding its three red petals 
and three green sepals, three broad, mottled- 
green leaves which, for some unaccountable 
reason, our florists remove when they offer 
the flower for sale. A strange w^himsy, this. 
The poor blossoms, thus denuded, have a be- 
wildered, self-conscious air, such as may 
have been worn by the little egg-selling wom- 
an of old, who awoke from her nap by the 
king's highway to find her petticoats shorn. 
Well may wake-robin thus question its own 
identity. It is no longer the trillium of tfte 
forest : it is only the trillium ofcQxnmo^Pf a 
sad, unlovely object »^^ /"'^^ X } 

A bank where wake-robin lifts it^onny he ' 
is always fair to see. The plant na§^erta 
boon companions alw^ays sure to b^d^q'se at 
hand. The Solomon's seal is one 4fthSse, its 
roots bearing to this day the round maitks im 
agined by the early foresters to be none othe 
than the seal of Solomon, the son of Davf^, 

13 








(S'ptan^ (on both of whom be peace !) >»^ There is 
(w0ultC0 no more exquisite green than the beautiful, 
shining leaves of this plant, with its tiny 
white bells of flowers. It has a near relative 
almost alw^ays growing near it, that, w^ith 
singular paucity of imagination, our botanists 
have called " False Solomon's Seal." 

lOW we reveal our mental habits 
through this trick we have of fals- 
ifying the plants. We say ** false " 
[asphodel, " false " rice, "false" 
hellebore, '* false " spikenard and mitre wort, 
but the falsity is in our own vain imaginings. 
The plants are as true as the earth that bears 
them, or the rain and the sunshine that bring 
them to perfection. The Solomon's seal is 
one lily, the ** false" Solomon's seal another, 
Man may be false, ** perilous Godheads of 
choosing " are his, but the wild things of the 
woods are true, each in the order of its nat- 
ure >s^^ There are no complexities or sub- 
tilities about wake-robin, here by the stream- 
side. You may see it at a glance, for its prin- 
ciples are brief and fundamental, as wise old 
Marcus Aurelius bids us let our own be, and 
yet, the plant has had its vicissitudes ; has 
met and solved its problems. Reasoning from 
analogies, time must have been when, like 
others of its great family, it grew in the 
water, floating out its broad leaves, lolling at 
14 



ease on the surface of swampy, watery places 
and still ponds. Times changed. Lands rose 
and waters subsided, and wake-robin found 
itself in the midst of new conditions. The 
problem of self-support confronted it, and the 
plant solved it by divesting from its broad, 
sustaining sepals nutriment to enable the 
long, swaying stem to meet the new demands 
upon it. It still loves water and seeks cool, 
damp woods and deep canyons, growing be- 
side little streams where it lifts its face to 
greet the springtime. It is probably not so big 
as when it rested luxuriously upon the water, 
but it is wake-robin, still, and it does more 
than summon the birds : it calls each of 
us back to Nature, bidding us keep 
our hearts and souls alive to see, 
w^ith each renewing of spring- 
time, and to love afresh, 
the miracles of Nat- 
ure's redemptive 
force. 






15 






HE beauty of springtime, 
like the beauty of child- 
hood, is always new. All 
jabout me the things of Na- 
ture are still in the mysti- 
cal, subtile tenderness of 
their young, green growth. 
The golden days of autumn 
are full of their own beauty. 
The grey days of winter's 
mist and fog have theirs, 
but there is something in 
the tender blue days of the 
rainy springtime that sets 
the heart apraise, and *>5fcs^ 
brings out as nothing else 
can, the meanings of leaf 
and bud, of flower and tree. 
It is raining, now.Up above 
me, on the road, several 
picnickers who have been 
caught in this April shower 
are hurrying to shelter cJfii) 
They look down curiously 
at me, here under the wil- 
low, and I have some mis- 
giving as to whether they 
I are not setting an example 
I that I should follow "^^^ 
But I am sure that it is a 




great mistake always to know enough to go 
in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry 
by such knowledge, but one misses a world 
of loveliness. There is, after all, a certain se- 
lective wisdom that sees the desirability of 
taking the showers as they come. 

IHERE is something peculiarly 
tender and loving about an 
April shower. One is so fully 
conscious,even while the drops 
are falling, that the sun is shin- 
ing behind the light clouds. 
And the drops themselves come down so 
gently, tentatively offering themselves, as it 
were,to the w^elcoming earth — pattering light- 
ly on the leaves, and softly rippling the sur- 
face of the little pool under the willows. That 
is a wonderful sort of comparison the Hebrew 
poet gives us when he likens the teaching of 
truth to the small rain upon the tender herb : 
the showers upon the green grass "^ 
The young colt in the stall, yonder, thrusts 
an eager head over the half-door, and with 
soft black muzzle in the air, stands with open 
mouth to catch the delicious trickle. The 
cattle on the hills seem glad of the wetting. 
Even the birds have not sought shelter, and 
why should I ? ^ I love to watch the leaves of 
the trees and plants, in the rain. They tell us 
so many secrets about the life of which they 

17 







i^ptanb are a part. Why, for instance, does this pond 
^(iStuttB lily spread out its broad, pleasant leaves upon 
the water's surface, while its cousin the 
brodeia has long, narrow, grass-like leaves ? 
Why do the leaves of the pungent worm- 
wood, here, stand rigidly pointing upwards, 
while those of this big oak are spread out be- 
fore the descending rain ? 

^ATCH the wormwood. See how 
ithe raindrops quiver for an in- 
'stant on the tips of the pinnate 
•leaves, then follow one another 
in a mad chase down the groove that trav- 
erses the center of each leaf. Notice that the 
leaf itself rises from three ridges on the stem 
of the plant, and that between these ridges 
lie shallow grooves down which the rain- 
drops run to the plant's root. Now, we can 
tell from these signs what sort of a root the 
wormwood has. I never pulled one of the 
plants, but I am sure that if we were to do so 
we should find it to have a main tap-root, 
with no branches. All such plants have leaves 
pointing upwards, and grooved stems, admir- 
ably adapted to bring water to the thirsty 
roots. The beets and the radishes afford us 
capital examples of this provision >s^^ 
This alfileria has another arrangement of leaf, 
for this same purpose. It is a widely spread- 
ing forage-plant, with an absurdly small root, 
i8 



It needs a great deal of moisture, and so its 
stems are thickly set with soft, fuzzy hairs, 
that catch the water and convey it to the 
root MMi^ Growing all along the bank is the 
little chickweed, with its tiny white star of a 
blossom. If it were not so common we should 
wax enthusiastic over its beauty, and seek it 
for our garden borders. It has a running, 
thread-like root, which receives the 
raindrops caught by the stem in 
a single row of tiny hairs 
along its lower side, 
and sprinkled gent- 
ly down. 







m 



fllttf^nb F^^^^^K ^^^ ^ plant has a spreading root 
^ ^ Vmumf^Mn^^^^ as the willow, yonder.sends 

A^^PBjlw down, the leaves spread outward 
^S^^^^^^and downw^ard, from base to tip, 
letting their gathered moisture down upon 
it. When the plant grows under water its 
leaves are long and threadlike ; for the sup- 
ply of carbon is limited, and they divide mi- 
nutely, that the greatest possible surface may 
be exposed to absorb it. If the stem grows 
until the leaves reach the surface of the 
water they broaden and spread out, for here 
they get an abundant food supply "which they 
may freely appropriate, as none of it need be 
diverted to build up a supporting stem. The 
water affords the leaves ample support ^€^^ 
The grasses grow in blades for the same rea- 
son that the plants growing under water put 
out slender, thread-like leaves. The air-supply 
would seem abundant, but the grass-leaves 
are many, and low-growing plants are nu- 
merous. So they divide and sub-divide, that 
greater surface may be presented to the sun- 
light and the air. In this form the blades are 
fittest to obtain their necessary food supply 
and thus to survive. We see this same ten- 
dency in the leaves of the wild poppy, the 
buttercup and all the great crowfoot family. 
Across the road stretches a line of locusts, 
just now in dainty, snowy, fragrant blossom. 

20 



i 



The individuality of a tree is a constant and (UDfonb 
delightful fact in Nature. The locust is asun- (i)(kettitt& 
like the oak or the willow as can w^ell be im- ^ 
agined, yet like them in taking on an added 
and characteristic loveliness in the rain. How 
delicately the branches pencil themselves 
against the blue and silver of the cloudy sky 
and the dark green of the orchard beyond 
them ! The leaves have such a purely inci- 
dental air. The lines of the tree Tvere, them- 
selves, lovely enough in their green and mossy 
wetness, to delight the eye. To deck them so 
laceywise in an openwork of leaf and blos- 
som was beneficent gratuity on the part of 
Mother Nature,for the pleasing of her children. 




m 



ens, the sycamores have grown to 
great size. How they help the heart, 
these gnarly giants, with the white 
patches against the greys and blacks of their 
rough trunks ! nj^^ How they spread their 
branches against the sky and beckon and 
point the beholder upwards. The sylvan 
prophet bears a promise of good,and demands 
of every passer-by the query of the wise old 
stoic : ** Who is he that shall hinder thee 
from being good and simple ? " 
Over the rounded hill, stealing softly, in In- 
dian file, through the mist, a row of eucalyp- 
tus trees climb, fringing up the slopes. These 

21 



pastures 



ladies of the hilltop have a fashion of growing 
thus, and in no other position is their delicate, 
suggestive beauty more apparent. The eucal- 
yptus is an original genius among trees, never 
repeating itself. It stands for endless variety, 
for strong good cheer, for faith that seeks and 
reaches and goes on, never wavering >5^^ It 
blesses as well as delights its friends. I love 
its wonderful, ever varying leaves, its up- 
reaching, outstretching branches, and the an- 
nual surprise of its mystic blossoming. Each 
tree is distinct and individual in its growth, 
yet every one is typical of the genus. 

IT IS a tree of the wind and the storm. 
irjflSee how those in yonder group sway 
' land courtesy, bow and beckon, advance 
and retreat in the light breeze ! And the 
rain does such marvels to them in the 
Iway of color, tinting the leaves into 
wondrous things of glistening black-and-sil- 
ver, and bringing out exquisite,evasive greens 
and browns, red and rose colors, tender blues 
and greys, from the trunks and branches i^ 
All the things of Nature are for man's use 
and joy, but perhaps they serve their very 
highest use when we return God thanks for 
their beauty ,^^::^ 

Yes, I am sure that there is a wisdom wiser 
than the prudence which sends us in out of 
the rain. The flowers and the grasses teach 

22 




I 



us more than has ever been put between the (JJl^fCinb 
covers of books. The trees bring us the real ^(^CtuttB 
news of the real world long before they are 
crushed into pulp and made into the paper 
on which is printed our morning service from 
the scandal monger and the stock broker. It 
was heralded as a marvelous triumph of mod- 
ern ingenuity when, the other day, a forest 
tree was cut down and made into paper on 
which the news of the world was printed and 
hawked along the streets within four and one- 
half hours from the moment when the axe 
was laid at the root of the tree. Marvelously 
clever, that, but shall we ever be wise enough 
to bring the trees themselves to the city, in- 
stead ? If we were but able to read the mes- 
sage they bear, the newspaper might go away 
into outer darkness, whence it sprang. 
gajf^^^HERE is a fearful moment of reck- 
Wt^^^S oning before us should it ever 
m^jumL chance that when all .our tfees^ 
^^^gS^l shall have been sacrificeti-^ tha-/^ 
altar of the patron-fiend of news, thejoei^-^,^ 
paper supply shall suddenly be c^^^^SdT^ 

we find ourselves some fine mornjrlg minus^,^^^ '^ K 

our tidbits of shame and failure and (Usasteg^- 
left to the companionship of oi^ 
thoughts ^ Dante never imaginoiSt-sr^^cet-:. 
like this ^€^ ^ 

But the sun has come out again. The rai 

23 




i/ 



\^ 



(S'PfMi^ over and gone. Only the last treasured drops 

()fXl6tUte0 chase one another along the leaves and down 

the stems of the plants. Our picnickers are 

venturing forth p4^^ The wet blades of grass 

sparkle in the sunlight. Over on the bank a 

ruby-throated hummer is flying back and 

forth across a tiny stream that patters and 

splashes against a rock. These morsels of 

birds love a shower-bath and this fellow 

now has one exactly to his mind. 

The clouds have drifted down the 

sky and everything seems 

glad and grateful for 

**the useful trouble 

of the rain." 



24 




NCE upon a time man con- 
^"B-eived the belief that this uni- 
verse, with its many worlds 
swinging through space, was 
created for him. He fancied 
that the sun shone by day to 
warm and vivify him ; that the stars of night 
were none other than lamps to his feet ; that 
the other animals existed to afford him food 
and clothing — and sport ; that the very flow- 
ers of the field blossomed and fruited and 
were beautiful for his gratification. In fact, 
man conceived the belief that instead of being 
the wise brother and helper of this creation 
amidst which he moves, he was the great cen- 
tral pivot upon which all revolves {^ 
A sorry lesson, surely, for man to read into 
the broad, open page of Nature's great book.^-^ 
Small wonder that to him in his meanne^ 
its message came as " the painful riddle^«f ^ 



^a0tutre0 



^""'''^^^ 



<:.-^ 



the earth." But it was the best he could do : 
it is the best any of us can do until we have 
learned the great lesson which the ancient 
Wise One has written out for us — which she 
will teach us, in time, through death, if w^ 
will not let her teach it through life : the leS^ 
son that use is not appropriation ; that ap- \ 
propriation sets-use to groan and sweat under 
fardels ofevilMMir 

We are learning this lesson, with a bad grace, 

25 rA 




/ 




i., 



Ql'l^fdnb like blundering school boys, fumbling at our 
dpHUStwCCB hornbook, stuttering and stammering over 
the alphabet of life, the while our minds wan- 
der stupidly off to the playthings of our un- 
holy civilization. Perhaps some day w^e shall 
spell out something of this riddle which we 
have made so painful, and with the lesson 
get somewhat of the humility that comes 
with knowing ^€^ 

But now man does not read the book of Nat- 
ure to much better purpose than he reads 
those other volumes, w^ritten by himself, and 
bought by himself, in bulk, to adorn his li- 
braries : portly tomes to which he may point 
with pride as evidence that at least his shelves 
hold wisdom, tho' his head may never. 

USE no figure of speech when I 

say that we may now buy our books 

in bulk. I saw, only this morning, 

the advertisement of a large dry 

goods " emporium " ('tis laces and literature 

now) wherein is announced for sale the bound 

volumes of a popular magazine. ** Over eight 

pounds of the choicest reading, bound in the 

usual style — olive green. ">^^» 

Nature has olive greens, too, in styles usual 

and unusual, and she has marvelous messages 

for her lovers, but she cannot be bought in 

bulk, nor put upon shelves, nor even carried 

in the head until she first be received into the 

26 




I 



heart ^^ A little flaxen haired girl brought (^ptcnixb 
me, this morning, a pure white buttercup on dfiMttXt^B 
the stem with three yellow ones. 
" See," she said, " Here is one buttercup they 
forgot to paint. "/^^ 

I took the flower from her hand. I could not 
tell her just how it happened that this one 
perianth was white, but I explained to her 
something of how the others came to be yel- 
low ^«^ What we call a flower is not, usually, 
the flower at all, but merely its petals. The 
real flower is the cluster, in the center of the 
calyx, of pistils and their surrounding pollen- 
bearing stamens. Away back in the ages when 
man had not yet developed his aesthetic sense, 
perhaps even before he had learned to make 
fire, the primitive flower bore only these pis- 
tils and stamens, with a little outer protect- 
ive whorl of green petals. It was fertilized by 
the pollen falling upon the pistils. 

gaUT this was not good for the plant. 
Those flowers that in some way be- 
came fertilized by pollen from other 
plants of the same variety, by cross- 
fertilization, in factjwere healthier and strong- 
er than those fertilized by their own pollen. 
In such plants as w^ind-blown pollen reached 
this cross-fertilization was an easy matter, 
but the buttercup is not one of these. It is 
forced to rely upon insects for fertilization. 

27 




(^ptan^ So the plant began to secrete a sweet drop at 
Gb40tute0 *^^ base of each green petal. Such insects as 
discovered this nectar and stopped to sip 
were dusted with the pollen of the plant and 
carried it to other flowers, where it fertilized 
the pistils, the insect gathering from every 
blossom a fresh burden of pollen to be car- 
ried along on his nectar-seeking round. This 
w^as very good, so far as it went, but the flow- 
ers were pale and inconspicuous, and many 
of them, overlooked by the insects, w^ere 
never visited. Certain ones, however, owing 
to accidents or conditions of soil and mois- 
ture, had the calyx a little larger, or brighter 
colored than their fellows, and these the in- 
sects found. It happened, therefore, if any- 
thing ever does merely happen, that the flow- 
ers w^ith bright petals were fertilized, and 
their descendants were even brighter colored. 
Thus, in time, the buttercup, by the process 
w^hich, for lack of a better name, w^e call nat- 
ural selection, came to have bright yellow 
petals, because these attract the insect best 
adapted to fertilize it "^ If man's aesthetic 
sense is gratified by the flower's beauty, why 
man is by so much the better off, but that 
man is pleased by the bright color is not half 
so important to the buttercup as is the pleas- 
ure of a certain little winged beetle which 
sees the shining golden cup and knows that 
28 



it means honey ^ In the same way the lupin, 
yonder, with its pretty blue and white blos- 
soms, has developed its blue petals because 
it is fertilized by the bees. They seek it as 
they do other blossoms, not only for honey, 
but for the pollen itself, which stands them 
in place of bread ,;^ The very shape of the 
flower is due to the visits of countless gener- 
ations of this insect. The bee is the insect 
best adapted to fertilize the lupin, and when 
he alights upon the threshold of a blossom 
his weight draws the lower petal down, and 
entering to suck the sweets he gets his head 
dusted with pollen. If a fly were to gain en- 
trance to the flower, he would carry away no 
pollen. He is smaller than the bee, and his 
head could not reach it. So honey-seeking 
flies alight in vain ; their weight is not enough 
to press the calyx open, so they may not enter / 
and drink of its sweets. Yonder i>n a blossoni 
of the mimulus, the odd-lookii;ig monkey-^ 
plant, a honeybee just had this sWipe ekj^ri- 
ence. The bumblebee is the only^iAsect ih^ 
is large enough to reach the poikrn:4n this,' 
blossom, and so its doors will c^n omy ^ 
him. Botanists tell us that all t'Sis-^freat fam- 
ily, to which belong the various pea(s blosj- 
soms and their cousins,were once five/petaled 
plants,but natural selection has brojigl^about) 
their present shape, which is an a^-^mp^W 

26 













(S^ptanb protection against the depredations of small 
^dSftXttB insects that could only rob but could not fer- 
tilize the flowers ns^^ 

Blue is the favorite color of the honeybee, 
and next to blue he prefers red. So bee blos- 
soms are blue or red. 

>^|-5<>JOST of our small white flowers 
f/BA/j K\)^^Jare fertilized by insects that fly at 
night.This is the reason why white 
|blossoms are more fragrant than 
their bright-hued sisters. Bright colors could 
not be seen at night, but the fragrance of the 
white flow^ers, always more noticeable by 
night than by day, serves the same end — to 
attract the useful insects. This is an essential 
part of Nature's wonderful plan. The flower 
lives by giving "^ 

There is an endless fascination in this page 
which Nature opens out before us, in her up- 
land pastures. A wise teacher once told me 
his experience with a restless, unmanageable 
boy i^ **1 could do nothing with him," the 
teacher said, " until I got him interested in 
field life." One day this boy went off on a hol- 
iday tramp, returning the day following. His 
teacher asked him what he had seen, and 
this is what he remembered of his outing: 
** I camped in a field for the night," said he, 
" and I saw a bee light on a poppy and crawl 
in. The poppy shut up and caught him. Next 
30 



morning I woke up early and v/atched, and 
by and by the poppy opened and the bee QJl^tlO 
came out." Jy There are those who might ^)<l6tuttB 
have missed the sacred significance of such a 
narrative, but that teacher was a very wise 
man and he knew that the reading lesson 
given him then was a page from his rough 
boy's soul-life, and he conned it with reverent 
delight. Life together was more real for them 
both after that day. 

S^^^JHE keener our realization of the 
^KV^ human love that is in the flowers, 
MRf^K in the trees, in all the wild life about 
^^^^g^us, the richer is our humanity, the 



fuller our reception of life and love, the more 
thoughtful our use of all the things of Nature 
becomes ^^^ Once I saw an oriole weaving 
some bits of string into his nest. He hung 
head downwards, by one string, from a pro- 
jecting branch, and worked, for nearly an 
hour, with beak and claws. Then he flew 
away, triumphant. Later I saw his nest and 
understood his action. He tied two pieces of 
string together in a very respectable sort of 
knot : had wound the long cord thus obtained 
in and out among the meshes of his nest and 
then, giving it a half-hitch about a twig, had 
brought the free end up and tied it securely 
to another small branch >j^^ 
I felt grateful for what that bird had accom- 

31 



postures 



plished. All human achievements seemed to 
me "worthier after seeing him do this thing. 
Nature teaches us so much if "we "will but 
keep still long enough to let her : if we will 
only empty ourselves of conceit and know- 
ingness,and get rid of the notion that all things, 
Nature included, are made for us. We are 
not the lords of creation. We are only 
a small part, albeit the highest 
part, of it all, and the better 
we learn this lesson the 
better men and wom- 
en we shall be- 
come . 







U 



WAS SITTING here beside the 
stream, watching the bees swarm 
in and out at the entrance to their 
hive, when Hercules passed by. 
'* Come and watch the bees,*' I 
called as he passed. **They are 
interesting." t^ 

He stood and studied the busy 
workers, intent upon the business 
of their miniature society ^ 
'* I wonder," he said at last, "if 
our human reason shall ever e- 
volve a system half so perfect as 
the one that mere instinct has 
taught these feeble insects." As I 
was silent he continued : 
'* Well, at all events, I can learn 
one lesson from the bees, and be 
about my business. If society is 
ever to be freed from its burdens 
every soul must do its full duty. 
One life wasted means a whole 
world hindered just that much." 
And Hercules was gone to his 
labors >4^ilf 

How fearful we all are of wasting 
our lives, yet so rarely fearful for 
the results of the ceaseless activ- 
ity with which we crowd them ^ 
But Hercules' words are full of 

33 



0atstutt6 



^•! 



ipaBiuxeti 



suggestiveness. Is our boasted human reason 
really less adequate to the needs of our life 
than is "what we call the instinct, this thing 
that looks so much more reasonable than our 
reason, of the lower orders ? What if, after 
all, we are making a desperate mistake in 
supposing that it is this faculty which w^e 
call reason that distinguishes us from the 
brute creation? 

J"^T IS because the bees and the other 
dumb creatures have nothing more than 
this measure of reason which we call 
instinct, that it serves them perfectly. 
Man has something else, that draws 
him higher ; that prompts him further. 
But alas for us ! AVith the destiny to live per- 
fectly as human beings, we yet long for the 
restrictions through which we may live per- 
fectly as the beasts. We seek our lessons 
from the brutes while the Eternal waits to 
teach us. We cannot live like the beasts. The 
divine human spark within us will not let us. 
We must live higher than they or we shall 
live lower, for our perfection of order is infin- 
itely higher than theirs, and our failure im- 
measurably lower than they can sink >s^^ 
But we go on, we modern Athenians, seeking 
to ameliorate the conditions we have brought 
upon society by our own stupid disobedience 
and inhumanity, and only now and then do 
34 



we have a faint suspicion that our newest 
thoughts are but mere rephrasings of ideas 
old as thought itself f4M^ 
Men get these new sets of phrases and dress 
therein the ideas that underlie the universe. 
We apply the terms of science to the old 
faiths and think we have invented a new reli- 
gion. We find new names for God Himself, 
and believe ourselves to have discovered a 
new life -principle Jy Loving the neighbor be- 
comes enlightened altruism, and lo, faith is 
born anew, with a subtiler power to redeem 
the world. 

V7 tJb "^^ERCULES is a Socialist, 
always spells society witll 

great S, and he declares 

\Vy/ in the present state of So<^ 
ety we can take no thought foi 
individuals i^ ** The individual 
may perish," he says, in moments 01 elo- 
quence, " but the integrity of Society /must be 
jealously maintained."-*^ 
I wonder, as I sit here watching the bees, 
whether Society might not, after all, find 
easement from its ails if each individual of us, 
myself and Hercules included, should pa^ 
strict attention to our individual busines^s pf 
growing, or becoming humanized ? i^ 
Just here at my hand a bee has alighted an 
is burying its nose in a clover blossom 






WUIXU. 




i 



(U^yfond is an example of a life that is lived only for 
Ob(l0tute0 Society, yet so important is the individual in 
the opinion of this highly perfected body so- 
cial, that I have seen half a dozen bees, when 
a laden worker has arrived at the hive open- 
ing, weighted down, too exhausted to do 
other than drop, helpless, upon the threshold, 
rush to its assistance, relieve it of its heavy 
load and help it to pass within to gather 
strength for further effort. The strict individ- 
ualist complains, in turn, of the bees because 
they have no individual life; no existence 
separate from the hive. This is true, but 
what higher individuality can any creature 
desire than is comprised and summed up in 
the divine opportunity to bring his individual 
^ift to the common store ? 

HAVE picked the clover blossom 
that the bee just left. Beside it are 
growing other blossoms, and I gath- 
f er a couple. They are the veriest 
wayside weeds — dandelion and dog-fennel — 
but they are important because they are typ- 
ical representatives of the largest order in 
the floral kingdom; an order which, although 
it was the last to appear in the vegetable 
world, has outstripped every other and leads 
them all today. Botanists call it the Compos- 
ite Order. Its members are really floral so- 
cialists, just as Hercules and the rest of us 
36 





who believe that government is an order of 
nature, and good for the race, are human so- 
cialists, whether we know it or not. 

UT most of us hold a mistaken idea 
about the relation of the individual 
to the w^hole. We are apt to theorize 
that it is the duty of the individual 
to keep the whole in order, and a good many 
of us are fully convinced that the world 
owes us a living. So it does, and it behooves 
each one of us to be faithful in discharging 
his individual share of the aggregate debt '^^ 
Nature has a whole page about that in her 
wonderful volume^^MB^ 

Take, for instance, this clover. "What w^e call 
the blossom is, in reality, many blossoms H 
Look at the mass under a glass. You will see 
that the clover head is made up of numerous 
minute cups in a compact cluster. Each cup 
is a perfect blossom. As we now see it in the 
clover it is a tiny tube, but it once possessed 
five slender petals which are now united fS 
The little pointed scollops that rim the cup 
suggest these petals. Now, the tiny cup is de- 
scended from a five-petaled ancestor, grow- 
ing upon its individual stem and depending 
upon insects for its fertilization. The flower 
was small, however, and many of them must 
have been overlooked by the insects ^!^^ 
But those blossoms that, growing very close 

37 






OXvfMlb tog^t^cr, formed little clusters, were more 
(i^ttshitts conspicuous than the solitary ones, and were 
^ discovered, visited for their honey and inci- 

dentally fertilized by the "winged freebooters. 
These blossoms bore fruit and their descend- 
ants inherited the social instinct prompting 
them to draw together that each might give 
the other its help and co-operation in attract- 
ing the insects. So, by degrees, the co-opera- 
tive habit became fixed in the clover, and in 
many other plants, until the compositae be- 
came a botanical fact. In other words, the in- 
dividuals formed a body social of their own, 
growing from a compact cluster from a com- 
mon stem, each giving and receiving, con- 
stantly, its use and share in the common life. 
The many-petaled flowers found it inconven- 
ient to arrange themselves in the composite 
order, and so, as we see in the clover, the 
petals have pressed closely together and unit- 
ed to form a tube-shaped flower, and as the J 
tubular form is best adapted to receive fertil- j 
ization by the bee, which insect is the most | 
useful to the clover blossom, that form has 
been perpetuated in this plant. 

HUS by the simple process of each j 

individual giving itself to the com- 
f\ mon life, the mutual protection and 
J2 development of the whole, this or- 
der of plants has become the largest in the 
38 





floral kingdom. The compositse have circled 
the globe. They fill our hothouses and flour- 
ish in our gardens; they greet us by the dusty 
road, and in the summer woods. The lovely 
golden-rod, the sturdy asters, the aristocratic 
chrysanthemums, the dainty daisies all be- 
long to this great order. So does helianthus, 
the big, beaming sunflower. 

T is quite true that each blossom of 
the compositse has given its life to 
the race. But what if, after all, life 
with our fellows is a giving instead 
of the receiving we are wont to think it?/-^^ 
What if, after all, the true outlook upon So- 
ciety will one day show us that our neighbor 
is put here that we may have the great, the 
inestimable joy of living for him? r^^itt 
All matter is made up of molecules. Science 
tells us, and there is another Voice as of one 
having authority, which tells us that One 
hath made of one blood all nations of men for 
to dwell upon the face of the earth ^^ 
We humans are but larger molecules in the 
body social. We live only in so far as the 
common life flows through us. We never 
fully, in our plans, and by a wonderful pro- 
vision of Divine Wisdom we cannot give one 
another that which is really and unmistaka- 
bly our own. No human thought, even, ever 
traveled a straight course from one human 

39 







i 



:/ 







soul to another and was received exactly as 
it was sent. "We live our lives each within the 
molecular envelope of his individual body, 
and w^e can no more mix, in reality, than the 
molecules mix. We live only in the flux and 
reflux of the Life of all, and only as we pass 
this on have power to receive. 

T is when life is fullest that we turn 
to our fellows. Those of us who are 
true know^ that then we need them 
most, and so, our real drawings to- 
gether are in order that we may give. We 
know this in that secret part of us where lies 
what most of us call our human weakness, 
but we are faithless to the knowledge, and 
choose to live on a lower plane, within that 
outer circle which we call knowing -«^"We 
think we come together to receive, but who 
of us does not know the emptiness of death 
that lies in such coming? We are all a little 
better than this. In secret we know that it is 
more blessed to give than receive, but we are 
ashamed of the knowledge^^i^^:^ 
We are less simple and true than the dande- 
lion, the dog-fennel and the sweet-clover here 
in the grass. The small common blossoms 
grow so cheerily one is glad to come back to 
them. It is true that not one wee tube or 
strap or head in any cluster could have much 
life outside the aggregate blossom, but the in- 
40 



1 



*. 



tegrity and perfection of each is an essential (JJl^fcwi^ 
factor in the integrity and perfection of the ^dCtwCtB 
whole. The tiny single flower that I can pull 
from this dandelion seems but an insignifi- 
cant speck, but, by and by, could it have 
been let alone, it would, its ripeness and per- 
fection attained, have taken to itself wings 
and sailed fluffily off upon the breeze to re- 
new its life perhaps a thousand miles from 
here. Seeing it float through the air a poet 
might have found it a theme for a sonnet. A 
scientist might have seen universal law em- 
bodied in its structure, or a seer have rea- 
soned from it to life eternal. 

ET, but for the co-operation of 
fellows in the body floral, i 
not have lived any more thdn, sav 
laUi^^^ayfor its fellows, what weinowLas 
the dandelion could have lived, ^e law 
co-operation, like all of Nature's la^^j m'siKess^^ 
for rightness and fitness all aloiij^helifie..*fJ^' 
She teaches us,with ever-repeated emphasis 
the lesson of independence of kind. The iso- 
lated being is, everywhere, the comparatively 
helpless being. The tree growing by itself In 
the open field often attains tojjiore sy^iaetrb^ 
cal perfection and beauty ^fan therfrSe/in the 
crowded forest, but woodmen tell us thi 
forest tree makes better timber -^^ 
We must live with and for okr fell^^i 










does this best who, in the quiet order of the 
common life, opens widest his soul to the 
Source thereof, and growing to the full 
stature of a man helps on to per- 
fection what should be that 
composite flower of the 
race, our human civ- 
ilization. 




42 



. 



HE little spring here gush- 
jes up and then sweeps 
away along a stony bed 
overgrown with brakes and 
tares. On its margin, amid 
I a tangle of wild blackberry, 
I have come upon a forest 
I of scouring-rush «/^ 
lit is a quaint growth. I love 
to put my face close to the 
earth and, looking through 
the rushes* green stems, to 
fancy myself a wee brown- 
ie, wandering among ai^ 
dense wilderness of pines. 
The development of the 
miniature trees is an inter- 
esting process «^ First the 
ground is covered with 
slender brown fingers MMi^ 
thrusting up through the 
soil. These grow rapidly, 
and in a few days spread 
out their brief, verticillate 
branches to the breeze, as 
proudly as any great tree 
might do. Here is a tiny fin- 
ger just pointing upward ; 
I yonder towers the giant 
of the liliputian forest, ful- 
43 










ly half-a-foot high. *' Scouring-weed,'* says 
the farmer, contemptuously, ** they aint no 
good. Some call 'em horsetail." 

N fact, the queer, witchy little things 
^ have a number of names : candle-rush, 
C- scouring-rush, horsetail, and their own 
^i\ proper appellation, equisitum. I have 
gathered a number of the little trees 
land they lie side by side in my palm 
while my mind tries to recall a few of the 
facts that go to make up the plant's wonderful 
history. Our grandmothers used to strew their 
floors with it, that no careless tread might 
soil the snowy boards. They used it, as well, 
for scouring, hence its name. Those who seek 
correspondences between the natural and 
physical kingdoms find the rush an emblem 
of cleansing, and this is precisely the office 
which, since earliest creation, it has filled for 
the world. For our scouring-rush was not al- 
ways the puny, insignificant thing we see it. 
It belongs to the carboniferous age. It has 
nothing to do with our modern civilization. It 
had reached its highest perfection and entered 
upon its downward career before man ap- 
peared on the earth. Its progenitors flourished 
with the giant ferns, the great, rank mosses, 
and all the rest of the carbon-storing vegeta- 
tion. A mighty tree was our little rush in 
those days, growing several hundred feet tall 
44 




and spreading out its huge whorls of branches 
in every direction. So we find it today, in the 
anthracite beds of the eastern slope. What 
happened to it that we should know it, living, 
as this degenerate creature of the bog ? 

N the carboniferous age the air sur- 
rounding the earth was much warm- 
er than at present, warmer than w^e 
find it in the tropics. The great mass 
which constitutes this globe was not yet cool 
enough to support any very high forms of life. 
There were no trees, as we now understand 
the word, and there was very little animal 
life. Beetles crawled about, spiders and scor- 
pions, and ^salamanders big as alligators, but 
there were no mammals, no birds MMI^ The 
world was in twilight, reeking with moist- 
ure, steaming in the warm air which it filled 
with all sorts of noxious gases. It rained aqua- 
fortis and brimstone, and the sweating earth 
sent these up again in deadly fog-banks of 
poisonous vapor ^€^ 

These were the conditions that our big rus 
loved. Its huge spongy stem and branches 
drank in life from the death-laden atm 
Its great creeping rootstocks soaked it up fr 
the morass beneath and the rush grew lu 
riantly. Its office was indeed a cleansing o 
to purify the atmosphere and jfi^eyit fi 
sustain animal life. In time, 







^^ 



Q^|)fonb meval trees reached maturity, they died, and 
CbdSfuttS ^^^ mighty stems fell back in the bog. Then 
came some great upheaval, some cataclysm 
of nature such as we find everywhere record- 
ed in her rocky books. The land rose or sank, 
and the rocks and debris of the sea floor were 
thrown upon the decaying vegetation. It w^as 
pressed and compressed beneath this weight. 
The fronds of the huge ferns ; the tall stems 
of the giant rushes ; the monstrous club-moss- 
es, and the primeval forest became a peat- 
bog. Still greater pressure — a longer lapse of 
aeons, and the peat became coal. 

*E burn them now, in our grates, 
ithe progenitors of these feeble 
things lying here, limply, in my 
palm. Is it not, as I said, a won- 
derful history the frail thing has. A degener- 
ate stock, botanists call it. So are its cousins 
the ferns degenerate, with no botanical Nor- 
dau to sound warning against them. But de- 
generates tho' they all are, they have still the 
spirit of the pioneer. They dwell in the out- 
posts of vegetable civilization. We do not find 
them flourishing where Nature is in her gen- 
tlest moods *3\ Once, down in the crater of 
an active volcano, half-a-mile from any soil, 
growing from a sulphur-stained black-lava 
floor, I found a clump of waving green ferns, 
as high as my head, spreading out their broad 
46 





fronds as though to cover and hide the terri- /|i^^ v 
ble nakedness of the unfinished earth. A thou- J2^\^ 
sand years from now a grain-field may spread Vr**"****^" 
where now those frail green plumes have just 
begun their gracious work. 

HIS clothing of the earth and the 
cleansing of the air are the tasks the 
giant rushes helped to perform for 
^the young world. During the pro- 
cess the rank gases of the atmosphere were 
gradually stored up within their great stems. 
Liberated, now, in our grates and retorts they 
give us heat and light. Then, the atmosphere 
becoming purer, the earth cooled and life sus- 
taining, new growths appeared. All the con- 
ditions were improved, but the improvement 
meant death to the big rush. It was starving. 
It could not find food in the thin air. Its roots 
could not suck up enough moisture to sustain 
life. It became smaller and smaller. Flowers 
and seeds it had never borne. It now gave up 
its leaves. Between every two whorls of 
branches on the scouring-rush we find a little 
brown, toothed sheath encircling the stem. 
In the days of the plants* prosperity each of 
these teeth was a leaf, but now the rush can 
maintain no such extravagance as leaves, so 
there remain only these poor survivals . The 
stem is hollow, and is divided, between the 
whorls of branches, into closed sections, or 

47 






joints. It has also an outer ring of hollow 
tubes, through which moisture is drawn up 
from the soil, to feed the branches. The rush 
is a little higher order of creation than the 
fern, but it is a cryptogram; that is, a plant 
never bearing true seeds, but propagating by 
spores ^s^^ 

And so, fallen upon hard lines, chilled, stunt- 
ed by the cold, but having a brief span of life 
when the spring rains have made the 
earth wet and warm, and before 
the summer heat has come 
to wither it, we have our 
scouring-rush only 
a few inches 
high. 




48 




ND this branched stem which we 
see is not fertile. 'Tis enough for 
it to support its waving green 
feather. The fertile stems are not 
branched. They appear above the earth, pale 
and shrinking ; put forth no branches, but live 
a brief season, develop their spores and dis- 
appear v^^nr 

The growth of the scouring-rush seems to me 
to show something beautiful, as well as in- 
teresting. There is a certain light-hearted gaie- 
ty in the waving, tree-like thing which makes 
one forget that it is a degenerate stock, and 
doomed to destruction. Still a little work re- 
mains for it to do : still some waste places and 
miasmatic bogs to be cleansed and purified, 
and so the little rush grows on, the merest 
shadow of its once opulent self. I am sure that 
the last horsetail to be seen on earth will grow 
just as breezily, as greenly and as cheerily as 
any now waving in this make-believe en- 
chanted forest at my feet $^ 
And who knows what may be the fate of that 
which was the real life of that ancient plant, 
— the forces of light and heat set free in our 
furnaces and forges, to begin, again, their of- 
fice of ministering use ?^€^ 
Did the giant rush die ? Does anything die ? 
Ages have seen the rushes fall and pass from 
sight, to wake to glorious light in the leaping 

49 






Q^ptavib flames. We see leaves fall each year and turn 
dpMtwtUi to mold from which other life-forms spring. 
There will be other poppies, next year, where 
yonder orange-red blossoms nod in the breeze. 
The waving grain, already headed out and 
bowing under its burden of raindrops, was but 
a few months since a mere handful of dry ker- 
nels. They were cast upon the ground, and 
they died, if that tossing sea of green is death. 
We see these things recurring upon every 
side of us, yet we still go up and down the 
earth demanding of prophet, priest and poet : 
** If a man die shall he live again ? '* -«^ 
A far cry from the little sprigs of scouring- 
rush in my hand ? But Life is a far cry, 
from Everlasting through Eternity, 
and who shall say, of the 
least of these, its mani- 
festations, ** It is 
no good?" 




50 




OWN among the water- 
cresses, an hour agOjStudy- 
ing the movements of a 
mammoth slug, I was star- 
tled by a shadow that fell 
directly across my hands. 
At the same moment there 
was an excited flurry and 
scurrying to shelter, among a tuneful mob of 
songsparrows who, all unmindful of my pres- 
ence, were teetering close beside me upon the 
tall mustard stalks that swayed beneath their 
weight >s^^ 

Looking upward I saw, between me and the 
sun, a pigeon-hawk soaring on motionless 
wings in the freedom of the upper air. I 
watched him with a joy that had no touch of 
envy, as he circled widely against the sky, 
rising,falling,swerving,returning, with scarce- 
ly a dip of the strong, outstretched wings «>5fcs- 
High though he poised,my thought could reach 
him ; strong though his flight, my fancy could 
follow and outstrip hun. He, high above the 
mountain-tops, gazed downvrard to the earth. 
His thoughts, his desires were Hbre. To mate- 






rialize them he mounted the air, 
upon the earth; with no palp^ 
wherewith to climb the ether, yet 
ments of being, more trusty than 
ure of the sky "^ 



Lth my feet 





Q^ptanb ^j^^gg^ ^^ j^ omething of this ^ 

Cb60fute0 vJ^rafe^v^l^^P^ passed through my brain 

as I watched the circling 

hawk. Once,withaflash 

of his strong wings, he 

made a do'wnward turn 

and, swift and still, he 

dropped earthward *€^ 

Then, as if frustrated in whatever had been 

his design, he wheeled again and climbed as 

swiftly up the air i^ 

I like that phrase as describing the flight of a 
bird. It is so literally what the creature does. 
A bird is not superior to gravitation. But for 
that force he would be the helpless victim of 
every little breeze, like a balloon, which is un- 
able to shape a course or do anything but float 
helplessly before the wind. The balloon floats j 

because it is lighter than the air, but the air ; 

which the bird displaces is lighter than he, ) 

and he only moves in it by virtue of his ability | 

to extract from it, by the motion of his wings, | 

sufficient recoil to propel himself forward, | 

He rises, as do we humans, by means of that 
which resists him v^«|iv 

I love to watch the seagulls. They do this so 
perfectly, and seem to delight to give us les- 
sons in serial navigation as they dip and whirl 
and call about the steamers, on the Bay, 
Their wings are so easy to study while in ac- 
52 






tion. The first joint, to where the wing bends 
back and outward, is strong and compact, cup 
shaped underneath. The second joint tapers. 
The feathers are long and do not overlap so 
closely as do those of the first joint, and at the 
free end they spread out and turn upward. 
The upper surface of the wing is convex, the 
lower surface concave. In flying the wings are 
throv/n forward and downward. Flying is not 
a flapping of the wings up and down, and if a 
bird were to strike its wings backward and 
downward, as its manner of flight is so often 
pictured, it would turn a forward somersault 
in the air. 

"jTRUCTURALLY the wing of a 
ibird is a screw. It twists in oppo- 
site directions during the up and 
idown strokes, and describes a fig- 
ure of 8 in the air. The bird throws its wings 
forward and downward. The air is forced 
back and compressed in the cup-shaped hol- 
lows of the w^ings, and these latter, by there- 
coil thus obtained, drag the body forward -«^ 
This resistance of the air is absolutely essen- 
tial to flight. We who think that, but for the 
buffetings of hard fate, we, too, might soar 
high and fly free in the upper realm of endeav- 
or, should watch the efforts of the birds in a 
calm. W^e shall scarcely see them flying. If 
impelled to flight, by necessity, the process is 

53 










a most laborious one. There being no resisting 
wind on which to climb (birds always fly 
against the -wind) the climber must, by the 
rapid action of his wings, establish a recoil 
that w^ill send him along. Watch the little 
mud-hen, flying close to the surface of the wa- 
ter, ready to dive the instant its timidity takes 
fright. Its wings vibrate swiftly, unceasingly^ 
for it rarely rises high enough above the water 
to have advantage of the air currents. For it 
there are no long„ soaring sweeps through the 
air ; no freedom from the labors of its cautious 
flight. It is a very spendthrift of efibrt because 
of the timidity that never lets it rise to the 
sustaining forces just above its head. To climb 
the sky is not for him who hugs cover* 

lO FL.Y ! The very thought sets 
the nerves atingle. It is joy to 
be afloat,, ** with a wet sheet 
|and a flowing sea and a wind 
that follows; fa&t." It is a joy 
|to be on the back of a swiftly 
running horse, with the wind rushing away 
from your face as you ride, bearing every 
care from your brain r^^ But to traverse 
the air — ^to fly ! This joy we long for : we 
have an indisputable, an inalienable right to 
long for it. To what heights may we rise ? 
This, after all, is the question that concerns 
us. Sordid, creeping wights that we are, con- 
54 




stantly referring our heavenward aspiration 
to the desire of the mortal, we still 
" To man propose this test — 
Thy body, at its best, 
How far can that project its soul on ;ts lone 
w^ay ? " 

UR VERY protests, our kicking 

against the pricks that would incite 

^U^-^/Mus to higher effort are but our blind 

i^^r^S^fear lest, after all, they should not 






mean flight. 'We are afraid of our moments of 
faith; ashamed of our aspiring impulse, the 
upward impulse that throbbed through all life 
since the world was born. We send forward 
our souls if haply they should find God, while 
we remain behind to weigh and test their ev- 
idence when they return to us — if they ever 
do, hugging the surface the while, lest a sus- 
taining breath of spiritual force lift us clean 
above the safe shelter in which w^e may dive 
altogether should our returning souls bring ^-^ 
back news of the meanings of life, scaring us^ /^ 
to cover, after all, by the thought that w^^ \ 
ourselves, are heaven and hell >s^' f v,/^ 

Usually we are content to grovel. We traver^e^( 
our little round and declare it to be destiny. 
We prate of the limitations of our humanity, 
forgetful of that humanity's limitless capaci- 
ty to receive. With insincere self-abasement 
we declare ourselves to be worms of the dust, 

55 







and the spirits of light who look upon us may 
readily believe our assertions jt 
But there are moments when the scales fall 
from our eyes. We get fleeting glimpses, then, 
of the meaning and the end of our human na- 
ture. Wc know that it is in the skies. We 
know that we have ourselves fashioned the 
chain that binds us to earth. We know that 
we were made for flight, and we know that 
we know all this. Still afar in the sky 
the hawk soars, with downward gaze 
seeking his desire. Still, tho' my feet 
are upon the earth, my spirit 
fares upward in its flight to- 
ward its desire, above and 
beyond its strong 
wings* farther- 
est flight. 



% 




5« 



-J 



^ 



WONDER whether the restless 
impulse that sends city folks hill- 
ward in the springtime is not a 
part of the Divine Plan that 
would lead us all to lift up our 
eyes to the hills whence our help 
Cometh. They flock up here, the 
city folks, during these first spring 
days, to eat their luncheons by 
the roadside and to fill their hands 
with the poppies and wild hya- 
cinth, the blue-eyed grass and 
pimpernel that everywhere dot 
the young meadows' glowing 
green. I hear, at night-fall, moth- 
er's voices calling the little ones 
to prepare for home-going, and I 
love to see the contented parties 
go wandering down, the tiniest 
tired climber usually sound asleep 
in his father's arms with the sun's 
last rays caressing the small face. 
It is good for them to be here. 
There is, in the dumbest of us, a 
faint stirring of recognition that 
the hope and promise of life are 
in the young year. This love of 
the childhood of things is the best 
thing our human nature knows : 
the best because there is in it the 

57 









least of self. It is a different thing from the 
love of new beginnings. It is not new begin- 
nings, but first principles that the soul seeks, 
now,and so we climb the hills,as naturally as 
the daisies look upward, leaving behind us the 
pitiful aims that end in self and belong to the 
dead level. 

J"^N THE springtime love awakens, born 
anew in the green wonder of the sea- 
son's childhood. Yonder where the road 
climbs the hill the sunlight is sifting in 
long bars through the eucalyptus trees, 
making a brow^n and golden ladder all 
along the w^ay. In everything is the fresh, 
tender suggestion of a Sunday afternoon in 
the springtime. The air is full of the scent of 
swamp-willow and laurel, and the breath of 
feeding cattle on the hills ^a^' 
By the roadside He and She walk shyly apart. 
They could scarcely clasp hands across the 
space that separates them, yet one seeing 
them knows their hearts are close together. 
The blue sky arches over them ; the soft 
clouds pass lightly above their heads : the 
sunbeams bring brighter rounds for the brown 
and golden ladder his feet and hers tread light- 
ly. They are palpably "of the people." Her 
hands are roughened and red from toil. His 
shoulders are bent by the early bearings of 
heavy burdens. Neither He nor She is over 

58 




twenty years old, and they are poor, as some 
count riches, but to them, together, has come 
the sweetness of life, and He and She are 
walking on the heights ^^ 

ESTERDAY they were but a boy 
I and a girl, but today He to her is 
Manhood ; She,to him, is Woman- 
|hood,and in this great human wil- 
derness they have reached out and found each 
other. Could anything be more wonderful than 
this ? Could anything exceed in beauty this se- 
cret of theirs that he who runs may read in 
every line of their illumined faces ? >»^^ 
Students versed in the 'ologies ; sociologists, 
philanthropists, economists and progression- 
ists of every sort, we know all that you would 
say. We have heard your arguments time and 
again. We have listened to your statistics and 
watched the shaking of your head over these 
unions of the poor. But the wisdom of life is 
wiser than men, else He and She would do 
well to listen to you instead of walking to- 
gether here on the hill road. They do not know 
these things that we are seeking to reduce to 
what we call social science ; and if they should 
know them, what then ? Are they not of more 
value than many sparrows ? ^^^5 
The afternoon shadows lengthen. Home-go- 
ing groups are beginning the long descent.The 
voices of little children calling to oni^-ai^otK^r^ 

59 



(JJpfanb 
(^agfure0 




cg^ 




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(^ptanb ing silverly over the hillside. He and She are 
Cb(l£fut00 not hastening. They have loitered along to 
where a bend in the road affords a wide out- 
look upon the city below, the gleaming bay, 
the white-winged ships coming in through the 
Golden Gate, the distant hills. In her hand are 
some poppies which he gathered. 

OWN to the western horizon 
sinks the sun. The gold has 
] faded from the road, leaving it 
a winding ribbon of grey. The 
crests of the hills and the gen- 
jjtlyswellinguplands are flooded 
with crimson light. It touches the eucalyptus 
trees into glory and flames in splendor along 
the western sky. It lights her face and his as 
they stand transformed before each other. 
They do not know that the crimson light has 
made them beautiful. They think the beauty 
each sees is the other's, a part of their won- 
derful discovery, and who shall say that either 
is wrong ? It is we who are blind, and not 
love. Indeed, love, alone, sees clearly. Exter- 
nal, temporal conditions have made his body 
less than noble ; have crossed his face with 
dull, heavy lines. They have narrowed her 
mental horizon and imprisoned her soul in a 
poor little cage, but He and She are held above 
these, now. They have been touched by the 
linger of God, and have seen each other's 
60 




beauty, the beauty that is their human right ; 
that once seen is never, again, wholly lost. 

|H£ crimson has faded 
to rose, the rose to i^ 
wonderful green — the 
green has turned to ^ 
white. The early moon 
has come out to light 
the hill. Hand in hand 
they are passing down 
|the road. Hand in hand 
they are going through life, toiling together, 
bearing together the burdens Fate brings to 
them. They know not what these may be. It 
is not given them to know the future, or by 
taking thought to lighten its ills or explain the 
blunders that have heaped these up. They 
have no strength or power, but to them has 
been given love ,^^^ 

Will love be theirs when Spring is gone and 
the summer drouth is upon them ; when Au- 
tum's harvest time is passed them by and 
Winter's breath has chilled their blood ? Will 
love be theirs when, hand in hand, in the un- 
certain white light, they journey down the hill 

of life? y^^m 

The cynic smiles at the question. The scien- 
tist deprecates it. Philanthropist and sociolo- 
gist shake their heads ^ 
Let it pass. Love is their's now. The universe 

6i 






QJj^fanb is theirs, for each to each is universal. The 
(Jpactutes Life of the universe is in them, and in 
the shimmering radiance that lights 
the v^^ay, silvering the city and 
making long, shining paths 
across the distant wa- 
ter as they go walk- 
ing down the 
hill road. 




6a 



so HERE THEN ENDETH UPLAND ^ 
PASTURES BY ADELINE KNAPP AS 
PRINTED BY ME, ELBERT HUBBARD, 
AT THE ROYCROFT PRINTING SHOP 
IN EAST AURORA, NEW YORK, U. S. A. 



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